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BENGALURU: Bengaluru has many things to be proud of -- its climate, weather, its hospitable people and opportunities. But one of the most unfortunate things about a metropolitan city is that most people don’t know, or care about, who their neighbours are. How we behave in traffic is exactly how we treat our neighbours: Everyone just wants to get ahead. If we develop empathy, it will show in our traffic sense and everything else.

In many countries, if someone is crossing the road, people stop to let them go. We can build flyovers and underpasses, but if we don’t know how to be civil with others, it won’t help. We can only get ahead when everyone gets ahead. No government can enforce that.

Bengalureans need to interact with each other and be more involved. While changing the city is not possible, we can still do things about our parks, garbage and take collective action to make our area better. We need to be more aware of our duties. We should not see this city as just a place to work and make money. Giving back to the city is important too.

Change can only begin with us. Our Metro is a great service, and we should rely on it more. Holding our elected authorities, be it an area corporator, MLA or MP, responsible is important too. Use social media platforms to question them when they don’t perform. Stay vigilant. Never let elected persons take us for granted.

India is a young country that needs to ensure that the youth has jobs, opportunities and enough reason to be optimistic. We want our youth to focus on progress instead of identity politics and wasteful bigotry.
Solution: Read a lot. Don’t depend on WhatsApp or social media for information.
Be better-informed individuals, who respect scholarship and merit instead of fake news and propaganda.

KM Chaitanya, writer and film director

Let your mixed feelings about Bengaluru get stirred up, as an influential person talks about things nice and nasty about the city in this weekly column

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